how Gertrude Ederle swam the English Channel and took the world by storm
On the morning of August 6, 1926, Gertrude Ederle stood in her bathing suit on the beach of Cape Gris-Nez, France, and faced the churning waves of the English Channel. Twenty-one miles across the perilous waterway, the English coastline beckoned. If Trudy reached it successfully, she would be the first female swimmer, and only the sixth person ever, to do so.